MEXICO CITY — A Canadian tourist suffered serious injuries Monday after being attacked by a shark while swimming near her hotel in the resort city of Cancun.

Cancun civil protection officials identified the 38-year-old Canadian as Nicole Ross, who sustained injuries to her left leg and arm in an attack that occurred 15 metres from the shoreline, the Mexico City newspaper Reforma reported.

Details of her hometown or travel itinerary were not released. A message left with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Ottawa went unanswered.

Dr. Italo Sampablo Lauro, medical director of Hospiten, a private Cancun hospital, confirmed the civil protection report when contacted by Postmedia News, but said Ross's injuries were not life-threatening and that she was expected to recover.

The doctor called the shark attack "exceptional" and rare for Cancun and the Riviera Maya.

"We've not had this kind of incident here previously," he said.

News agency Notimex reported a previous shark attack near Cancun in 2008 that claimed the life of a local man who was swimming with his family.

CANCUN, Mexico — A Canadian woman lost an arm and suffered serious injuries to a leg after being attacked by a shark while swimming just off the beach in the resort city of Cancun, local media reported.

"A female shark attacked and left her badly hurt," Mario Castro, head of the local civil protection office, told the El Diario del Yucatan newspaper.

Nicole Ruth, 38, was hospitalized in grave condition and had "her left arm and thigh detached," the daily reported.

Apparently the shark was close to the shore to give birth and the woman, who was with a large group of swimmers, got too close, the paper said.

Civil protection forces were trying to locate the animal.

Shark attacks are not common on Mexican beaches. Two people were killed in May 2008 in the Pacific coast town of Zihuatanejo.

CANCUN, Mexico - A Canadian tourist is in critical but stable condition after she was attacked by a shark in this popular vacation spot.

Local media said Nicole Ruth, 38, was swimming 10 metres from the shore in front of the Park Royal Hotel when she was attacked.

“Thanks to the help of her friends and the Red Cross we were able to stop the hemorrhage,” said hospital spokeswoman Cristina Badillo. “We were able to take care of her and her condition is stable.”

Early reports from local media suggested Ruth lost an arm and part of her leg in the attack, but doctors said Tuesday that was not true.

“Her arm and her leg are in good condition,” Badillo said. “We can confirm there was a serious bite, but she is responding very well to our treatments.”

A man named Jessy Jass described to a local radio station, Radio Quintana Roo, how he helped after the attack.

"I was close to her. She was bleeding a lot,” he told the station. “I took it out of the water but she was losing too much blood. I wrapped a towel around her leg and my friend took care of her arm ... I do not know how she survived.”

Local authorities immediately issued a shark warning at the beach. Red flags were posted and nautical authorities are hunting the shark.

Authorities say the shark was likely a female looking for a place to give birth.

The Cancun public safety department has not yet issued an official statement, saying they want conclusive proof it was a shark attack.

“According to other information we have it could have been a barracuda,” said spokesman Fernando Ruiz.

The Cancun area is not known as an area at high risk of shark attacks, but two years ago two people died after being bitten by sharks.

Nicole Moore, a Canadian nurse who was attacked by a shark in Mexico, is shown in this undated photo.

Nicole Moore.jpg (26.82 KiB) Viewed 32879 times

CANCUN, Mexico — A Canadian nurse who found herself in a life-and-death struggle with a shark in Mexico this week said Friday the ferocious fish tried to drag her under the water as it repeatedly sank its teeth into her flesh.

Nicole Moore, a mother of two, said she was terrified as she tried to fight off the attack, which stained the water around her blood red.

Speaking for the first time about her harrowing ordeal Moore, 38, said the approximately 1.8-metre-long shark bit her three times, its teeth slicing into her arm, hand and leg.

"As soon as it bit, I knew what it was," Moore told radio station CKLW in Windsor, Ont.

"It got my arm. And when he or she -- whatever it was -- got hold of my arm, it bit down pretty good and she was trying to pull me under."

Moore spoke from a hospital in Cancun, where she's still recovering from serious injuries.

The nurse from Orangeville, Ont., who was initially misidentified by Mexican officials as Nicole Ross, was staying at the Cancun Caribe resort on a girls' trip with friends from her yoga class.

The others had gone shopping but she went to the beach to play volleyball. Covered in sand, she waded into shallow water to clean off.

Just down the beach, 20 to 30 swimmers ran from the water after a lifeguard blew a whistle as a shark moved toward the shoreline.

Men on personal watercraft swarmed the big fish to try to keep it from swimmers.

Moore said she heard the men yelling, but thought it was because she was too close to them.

She doesn't speak Spanish and didn't know they were warning her about the shark.

Within moments, the nurse found herself facing off with the shark.

"I just felt this first bump and then this bite," she said. "It bit me right on the upper thigh of the left leg."

Moore knew she had to get out of the water as the predator circled her, then came in for more.

"With my (free) hand, I just grabbed hold of its nose and just reached my arm out away from it and started running."

Witnesses said they saw blood in the water and heard her screaming.

Moore said she knew exactly how bad her injuries were when she was finally pulled to safety and gave instructions on how to bandage her.

Two other nurses arrived and took over as she started to fade.

"My first thought is my children. All I was thinking of was I have two kids," she said.

"I need to slow my heart rate down. I need to keep calm and I need to get help."

Moore had surgery and a blood transfusion at the Hospiten Cancun, where she was expected to remain for at least a week.

Doctors have told her they are waiting to see how much mobility she will regain.

The reality of what happened is starting to set in, said Moore.

"I'm extremely emotional about the whole thing now."

Moore's husband, a police officer, flew down to Mexico after the attack. Arrangements were still being made for her return to Canada.

In the interim, the nurse and her family are trying to stay positive.

"I've called myself sushi, someone else has called me fish food," she said.

Nicole Moore was just grateful to be alive after Mexican doctors stitched up her bitten arm and sewed a chunk of thigh back on after a shark attack nearly killed her.

But the Orangeville, Ont., mother of two has since learned troubling details that led to questions about her medical care.

"I'm conflicted because I want to be happy with what I have," Moore told CBC's The Fifth Estate. "So part of me is saying … just let it rest. The other part of me that’s conflicting is: But if something went wrong, shouldn't that be righted?"

Moore was attacked by the shark on Jan. 31 while waist deep in the water during a Cancun vacation with friends.

The shark bit a 30-centimetre-long chunk out of Moore’s left thigh and also bit down on her arm. Moore managed to get the shark to let her arm go by punching it.

Once dragged to shore by a person on a Sea-Doo, Moore, a cardiac nurse, called for beachgoers to apply tourniquets to her so she wouldn't bleed to death.

Soon after, she was rushed to the emergency room. Following close behind was someone who had found the missing piece of Moore’s leg floating in the surf and put it on ice to try to save it.

The recovered piece of Moore’s leg was reattached and the gash in her arm was sewn up.

“Everybody was telling us that everything was progressing well,” said Moore’s father, Alberto Baldassari, who rushed to Mexico after learning of the attack.

But what they didn't know was that infection was setting in.

Moore found own hospital bed

'The one time that we need some help, it's not there.'—Moore's father, Alberto Baldassari

Adding to Moore’s troubles was the fact that she was forced to stay in the country.

Moore says her insurance company claimed she couldn't leave Mexico because the company couldn’t find an empty bed at a Canadian hospital.

“The one time that we need some help, it’s not there,” says Baldassari. “It doesn't sound right. It makes you angry.”

Moore and her father made their own arrangements to find a hospital bed back in Canada. Five days after the attack, Moore finally arrived in Toronto.

She says doctors at Sunnybrook Hospital were shocked by what they saw: salt and sand were still in the wounds and the area around the chunk of thigh sewn back had been badly contaminated.

“The original bite was about 30 centimetres in length,” says Moore. “It’s a little wider now because of all the surgery they’ve had to do to cut back.”

Doctors were unsure whether they could save her left arm due to questionable care in Mexico, says Moore. The arm was later amputated.

Moore now wants to know whether the care in Mexico led to the amputation.

After trying unsuccessfully to get her Mexican medical records sent to Canada, Moore travelled back to the hospital last week to request them in person.

She obtained the medical records, but believes there might be information missing about her care. She’s in the process of translating the records from Spanish.

Resort adds shark patrols

Questions are also being raised about how the shark attack happened in a popular Cancun resort area just metres from the shore.George Burgess, a shark expert, says resorts and tourists don't realize that sharks are often nearby.CBC

“I was shocked when I saw what happened because this is new in Cancun,” said Carlos DaSilva, a manager at the Cancun resort where it happened, the Grand Park Royal Cancun Caribe.

DaSilva says the attacks have prompted the resort to make changes, including having a security guard use binoculars from atop the building to check every half hour for sharks.

Boats also patrol the waters and DaSilva says the resort is considering further measures. Since the attack on Moore in late January, swimmers have been called out of the water three times due to a spotter seeing something in the water.

George Burgess, a shark expert brought to Mexico to advise resorts on better protecting their guests, says shark attacks are so rare that a person has a greater chance of winning the lottery.

But he adds that resorts and tourists don’t realize that sharks are often nearby.

“Anybody who’s been swimming in subtropical or tropical waters and does it more than a couple hours in their lifetime have probably come within 50 to 100 feet of a shark and just don’t know about it,” said Burgess.

Burgess warns that periodic patrols are insufficient since sharks are mobile.

“The fact of the matter is that you have to have people looking in the water all the time,” he said.

“We’ve seen this in virtually every place where I’ve been brought in for shark attacks. People cut corners.”

Despite everything that potentially went wrong on Jan. 31 and Moore’s search for answers, she’s determined to move on with her life.

During last week’s visit to the resort where the attack happened, Moore thanked hotel staff for saving her life.

And she also faced a fear head-on: jumping into the same waters where she was attacked.

“It was really actually super incredible,” she said after diving in. “I’m proud of myself.”